30th July 2004 Archive

Deutsche Telekom this week was forced to suspend all activities of its Online Business Service Operation Centre (OBSOC), a German version of the Microsoft's Passport system, which enables customers to order and pay for online services and products.

The top brass running Big Blue are still reshuffling executives in the aftermath of the departure of Mike Lawrie, formerly the senior vice president of sales and distribution. IBM likes to cross-train its key executives in different geographies, job types, and lines of business every couple of years, but there could be more to these particular moves than meets the eye...

Bsquare is to drop its Power Handheld (PH) Windows XP-based wireless PDA. The company will instead offer the device's design to other vendors under licence and sell them the application and utility software it had developed for the device.

Our recent story Pop-up goes the commission reported on allegations that 180solutions' permission-based search assistant application Zango may have been dowloading itself onto users' computers without their knowledge.

Real Networks has compared its DRM translation software, Harmony, to Compaq's cloning of the original IBM PC to rebuff Apple's claims that the technology may infringe the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

The launch of a cut-price, entry-level broadband product in March has helped Telewest rack up a record three months for attracting new customers. In the three months to the end of June cableco Telewest added 72,000 new high-speed Internet punters, compared to 51,000 in the first quarter (Q1). As of 30 June, Telewest had 538,000 broadband Internet subscribers.

Microsoft may break its normal patch cycle to issue a fix for the vulnerability infamously exploited by last month's Download.Ject (AKA Scob) attack. Internet.com cites Dean Hachamovitch, Microsoft group product manager for Internet Explorer, in support of a story that a patch is imminent. It reports that patch to be released next week will provide a "long-term solution to the core vulnerability" that led to the Download.Ject attack, one of the most serious security pratfalls ever to hit IE.

Well, the results of our Mother of all Music Polls are in, and they make sobering reading indeed. More than 7,000 of you voted and we can now confirm beyond any doubt that - despite previous reports to the contrary - developers do not play air guitar to Megadeth. No, it's much, much worse than that.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is rather belatedly seeking to crack down on ‘standards-plus’ products that achieve extended speed or range through proprietary add-ons, yet still claim to be fully interoperable. The Alliance has threatened to remove its certification from any product that interferes with another Wi-Fi product.

AMD's new budget processor, the Sempron, has finally arrived. The speculations behind what the Sempron would be were confusing and didn't seem to make sense at the time, and it's still not quite clear why AMD has released some of the models, writes Lars-Goran Nilsson.

A US man has pleaded guilty to cyberstalking a former girlfried. Believed to be the first person to be fingered under US laws prohibiting Internet stalking, Robert James Murphy, 38, of Columbia, South Carolina, originally denied a hearing in April 26 counts of using his computer "to annoy, abuse, threaten and harass" Joelle Ligon, a 35 year-old Seattle woman.

Ah, humanity. We are a sneaky species, forever attempting to get a leg up on everyone else in as underhanded a manner as possible. If there's a way to listen in to conversations not meant for us, watch the actions of others furtively, or read someone else's secrets, we do it.

A decision by a federal court in Minnesota may have profound repercussions for the ability of consumers and others to rely upon promises of security and privacy made on corporate or governmental websites - and that's just for starters.

The National ID Card programme will be too expensive, has been shrouded in secrecy and lacks sufficient safeguards against abuse. So says a report from the Home Affairs Select Committee, which describes the Home Secretary David Blunkett's secretive approach as "regrettable".

The ageing Data Encryption Standard (DES) is no longer secure enough for use by government and should be replaced by Advanced Encryption Standard (AES) instead, according to a key US government standards agency.

Seems young Ashlee upset a few people with his latest article about Segway Polo. Turns out there are a lot of people out there with scooter envy, who take umbrage on behalf of Segway Poloists. We still think its a bit silly, to be honest, but that might just be us.

It has come to our attention that some readers are a bit miffed with our stateside correspondent Ashlee Vance's controversial coverage of the Segway scooter and how it has contributed to the advancement of humanity in so many ways.

Some vendors try to defuse a bad quarter by screaming at the press, demanding recognition for myriad customer wins and products shipped. This is not the model embraced by Cray. The supercomputer specialist appears to prefer a whimper over a scream.